After four days of wandering around Europe, the 80th Vuelta a España came home for Wednesday’s team time trial, where UAE-Emirates got the better of Visma-Lease a Bike with a victory. Jonas Vingegaard took back the red jersey from David Gaudu, but Juan Ayuso and João Almeida trail him by only 8 seconds. Canadian Pier-André Côté’s Israel-Premier Tech was delayed by a small protest that stretched across the road.
The Course
The team time trial is almost a tradition in the Vuelta, while the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia employ them sparingly. Picnic-PostNL was the last squad to win one in 2023, Visma prevailing the previous year and Astana top dogs in 2019. Visma won the last WorldTour TTT at March’s Paris-Nice.
On the 24-km route, the intermediate time checks were situated at the 7.8 km and 16.6 km marks.
Clad in motley, Lotto was the first to start and finish (25:53), Alpecin-Deceuninck following four minutes later. Lidl-Trek took over the best time from Lotto with 25:35.
A protest stretched across a narrow road in front of Israel-Premier Tech, and motorcycles had to crack open a path for the team. Nevertheless, the squad was delayed.
Ineos came up seven seconds short of Lidl-Trek just as Visma got underway. UAE were three seconds to the good on Visma at the first time check but had slowed by the second. Visma proved to be even slower. A good start for Red Bull was undone by the hard crash of Matteo Sobrero in a corner, but Jai Hindley’s outfit was only three seconds slower than Lidl-Trek at the finish line.
UAE had measured its efforts, and cracked Lidl by nine seconds. The team of Gaudu only lost 17 seconds to Visma.
Summit finishes return on Thursday with Cat. 1 Pal in Andorra.
2025 Vuelta a España Stage 5
1) UAE-Emirates 25:26
2) Visma-Lease a Bike +0:08
3) Lidl-Trek +0:09
2025 Vuelta a España GC
1) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Visma-Lease a Bike) 16:11:24
2) Juan Ayuso (Spain/UAE-Emirates) +0:08
3) João Almeida (Portugal/UAE-Emirates) s.t.
78) Pier-André Côté (Canada/Israel-Premier Tech)
176) Nickolas Zukowsky (Canada/Q36.5) s.t.
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